Thursday, November 29, 2007

The Lord blessed us immensely during the conclusion of the conference today. God blessed the last messages with such passion and zeal. The morning began with a panel discussion in which questions where posed to the speakers from Calvinists’ and Non- Calvinists’ alike.

Following the panel discussion, Tom Ascol, gave a zealous message on the Gospel, the Christian, and the Church. He said:

“All theology and all ethics can only be studied in the light and person of Jesus Christ.”

After speaking of the Gospel, he continued to speak on the Christian. He spoke of true and false conversion, regeneration and justification, and many other aspects. He passionately stated:

“Where there is no change of nature on earth, there is no reason to expect a status change in heaven… You cannot disciple a corpse; if there is no life, there will be no growth.”

During the final part of his speech he spoke briefly on the church being the bride of Christ and how we should seek to love the church even as He did. This message was full of a wonderful balance between willingness to speak about doctrine but yet action in sharing our faith.

Setting off a final rocket in the sense of speaking, Dr. Danny Aiken gave an inspiring message on answering the call to a great commission resurgence. Through his message he desired to rekindle the passion for the great commission in the SBC. He encouraged us to find ways in which we could unite together as one for the calling of Christ. During the end of the message he began speaking about how often non-Calvinists’ blame Calvinist for the baptism rate in our churches being low. However, he ardently stated:

“Could it be that the problem really isn’t Calvinism, could it be that we’ve lost our love for the Gospel as a whole.”

The Lord’s hand was really upon this conference. It was such a wonderful blessing to be able to attend this kind of thing. It was like Calvin meeting with the men in Geneva. The Lord definitely used this conference to rekindle the desire in my heart to be active in evangelism.

Iron Forge Ministries Vision

Iron Forge Ministries is devoted to encouraging young boys to become Godly, bold, effective, and obedient men for the glory and honor of our Lord Jesus Christ. In a culture that’s lost the meaning of Godly manhood, it is vital that we work to restore the Scriptural patterns for Godly boyhood and manhood. The goal that the Lord has led me to embark on is clearly defined in Proverbs 27:17: “As iron sharpeneth iron, so one man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend."